Entries categorized 'General'

I mentioned my lofty goals for 2010 in a previous blog post.  One of the goals is moving some efforts from freelancing work to products which can happen in a couple of ways; either by developing products yourself or by acquisition.  Acquisition is how we are introducing the first product in our company.

Why Expens’d?

We welcome Expens'd as our first product.  Expens’d is an application for tracking expenses, which sounds a bit boring but is a task many salespeople, consultants, freelances and just about anyone in business needs to do.  I personally think so many applications which are accounting systems also track expenses but do it in a way which is cumbersome and ordinary, we want to change this.

In the weeks and month ahead we will be introducing many new features to the application and changing some that already exist.  Thanks to our users feedback we have some clear guidance on what they want to see and plenty we want to explore.

Why Acquisition?

I have had the idea of a carefully crafted expense tracking application on my mind for a very long time but failed to set aside the time to pursue it.  When I found out Robert Dempsey of Atlantic Dominion Solutions was going to shutter Expens’d due to other interests, I jumped on the chance.  Expens’d had a great start with a good feature-set and knowing Robert, had a great code base.  This would get me part of the way there.

This is a huge advantage when building from scratch wasn’t really an option due to some time constraints.

The Future

I see many great things that can be done in this market.  Things that can make the task of data entry much more streamlined that can be extended to other applications.

Readers can follow what is happening with Expens’d on my company blog which will be updated as new features come out.  Thank you and stay tuned.

2009 was a very interesting year, a year of some realization and a year which helped lay the foundation for the year ahead and hopefully the future.

I decided to document here a bit of what I have on my mind for 2010, not New Years Resolutions, I hate those and never do them. I have gained a fair following of loyal readers over the years and think of you as family, so I thought I would share with my blog family.

Freelancing

As I said in my previous post, I have been freelancing for many years and in 2009 I realized the ability and desire to continue with freelancing as a full-time endeavor was difficult. I will not be pursuing freelancing full-time in 2010 and as the year progresses I see the time spent freelancing to be less and less.

I will continue to work with selected clients as I have a vested interest in their success. In time I imagine their need for my services will be less and less.

I will be open for consulting opportunities with the possibility of part-ownership in a product and/ or for projects that need help figuring out difficult problems in areas I have expertise in but not limited to .NET to Rails migrations as well as scalable ecommerce systems.

Products

Even before I was in college I have always wanted to have an idea for a product, develop it, successfully market it and support it. I have been involved in a product company in the past but not my own individual ideas. I am sure this sounds self-serving, and it is, but there comes a time when we need to decide what is important and do it.

So, my goal is to primarily be a product company by the end of 2010. The company is Still River Software Company, LLC, which has been the umbrella I have been providing freelance services for the past 3.5 years.

Things are progressing nicely in a couple of exciting areas, so new product announcements will be coming soon. Very soon, but not just yet.

Blogging

I have not blogged a lot lately, been too busy with the business side of life. I will be blogging here, mainly about technology trends and my usual odd opinions about some aspects of technology and may begin to add some business writing as well which covers certain aspects of running a software company.

I will also be opening up a new blog for Still River Software which will discuss very company-specific information, including product releases and such. I will announce it here when it's ready, please check it out.

Conferences

I have not attended as many conferences as I hoped to in 2009, the ones I did attend were developer-related, mainly Ruby. In 2010 I intend to attend more conferences but probably more in line with running a business or software company more specifically. I hope to see you there.

So, I hope the ride is nice and I hope I can report back great success at the end of the year, I certainly expect it.

Today is my 43rd birthday.  I have since my late 30’s, really disliked thinking about being another year older, I mean, it’s really only another day older than I was yesterday but acknowledging the fact that an additional year has past put me in a somber mood.  Maybe it is the realization of middle-age that makes one think about their place.

In prior years I spent the day reflecting on the past 365 days and wondered if I had made the best use of my time and taken advantage of the right opportunities.

Reflection

This birthday is no different in as much as reflecting on the past year but taking a different view of it.  I realized that I am damn lucky!  I have a great family, I work from home and do the work I choose to do.  I get up everyday and don’t take the dreaded commute to the cubical farm.  I get to see my family every morning a take my daughter to school.  I know many people wished they could have this life because I dreamed of it myself when I was commuting and wasn’t home when I wanted to be.  It is easy to miss too much.  I have reached aspect of my life that I can stand and be proud of.

I am truly happy and at a peaceful point even with the state of our economy and the climbing costs of everything.  Keeping our head above water and moving forward, certainly means success.

Inspiration

I read a lot of blogs, some I read every detail and some I don’t.  I find myself looking for something different now than I used to, so the sources of information have changed.

I find those people that are taking the same path I am taking or are where I want to be are the ones I find so much value in.  My goals are not to be rich or famous but to provide for my family, feel good about the work I do and help others find what inspires them.  It’s not always easy to be able to explain things as one might, therefore some source of inspiration.

• Steven Bristol and Allan Branch with great posts like Co-founder of an Unknown Software Company by Allan.
• Derek Sivers – If you think you haven’t found your passion…
• So many others

It is so true, passion and inspiration mean so much.  I know too many people who have a 9 to 5 “job” they never really enjoy.  I think something we spend so much time doing, we should be happy doing it.  It doesn’t have to be working for yourself, it can mean anything as long as it adds value to your life. 

Projection

It seems part of my career always seemed to be chasing something that I knew existed but I wasn’t exactly sure I would know when I got to it.  I can honestly say that I know what that goal is and I have a fairly good idea how to get there. 

I won’t go as far as lay out the path to the next goal but I do have it laid out in my mind.  I will blog about it here when I feel comfortable talking about it, but I will say that things will change for the better.  Stay tuned, good things to come.

I have been using Microsoft Bing as my main search provider from both Internet Explorer and Firefox for a while now and I have to say it has been working really well.  I was a bit skeptical at first, mainly because Microsoft search has lagged behind Google for so long. 

I decided to change my blog search to Bing tonight.  I like the way it allows for local searching of a topic but then allows to see results from the web too.  I have done many test searches on this site and it is working great.

Anyone can do the same for a web site for which they can edit HTML and/or JavaScript.  Check out - http://www.bing.com/siteowner to add Bing to a site.

If anyone gets results they didn’t expect or any odd behavior, please let me know.

Today I moved this blog to a new server to provide some expansion and additional speed.  Please let me know in the comments or via email if you experience any broken links or other strange behavior.  There should not be any issues.

Thank you.

The recent downturn in the economy has turned many more developers who were full-time employees into consultants to help pay the bills.  This increased competition has led freelancers and contractors to find business in new ways we have not seen in many years, since the bubble in 2000, to be exact.

I was introduced to a book a short time ago called Get Clients Now!(TM): A 28-Day Marketing Program for Professionals, Consultants, and Coaches by C. J. Hayden.  My original thought was this was a bit of a gimmick but since it came recommended, I would give it a try.

In the past several months I had been trying both Google Adwords and Facebook Ads with miserable results.  The ads are shown a lot but gave little or no results.  I used different types of ads with different copy targeted at various markets with little difference.  I wasn’t really sure why until I read this book and it made a lot of sense.

The program outlined in this book offers much flexibility to the person taking on the marketing program based on their comfort level and their expected rate of return (new leads and new clients).

Referring to the worksheet provided by the Get Clients Now! website and referred to in the book, you can see 6 ways of finding new clients:

The worksheet defines these 6 different strategies by order of effectiveness, with Direct Contact and Follow-Up being the most effective and Advertising being the least effective.   So my new approach to finding clients was the least effect of the 6 and likely explains my lack of lead generation. 

My best source of clients up until this point had been referrals from existing clients and repeat business from clients.  Both are certainly great ways to get business but as spending cuts occur there comes a time to bring in new leads.

The Audience

If you look at each of the 6 strategies there is something interesting to note; as the effectiveness of each decreases from left-to-right, the size of the potential audience goes up.

1. Direct Contact and Follow-Up – is a one-on-one contact, you and a potential client.
2. Networking and Referral Building – you in a small group at an event, likely one-on-one or you and 5-6 people talking.
3. Public Speaking – you talking to a group of 20-100 people.
4. Writing and Publicity – you addressing an audience with an article and 1000-2000 people, maybe more.
5. Promotional Events – could be a trade show with 10000 people seeing your message as they walk by looking for freebies.
6. Advertising – like Google AdWords you are flashing your brand to 100,000+ people.

As we move down the list the message gets lost among others and it becomes colder.  I have always had a very good network and as I said, referrals are great and bring in new business.  The place I tried and failed was attempting #6, Advertising, where I thought if more people saw my message that the hit rate of return would increase.  I could not have been further from the truth, so don’t waste dollars on advertising yourself.

What’s Been Working

I don’t do all of the 6 steps but only 3 of them but they all are working for me very well.  I need to work harder in some areas but things improve over time.

What works for me may not work for you and free time may play a role in some aspects.  My plan consists of:

1. Writing – I write for InfoQ.com about Ruby technologies and on this blog, of course, about anything technology-related that interests me at the time.  This gets my name out there and recognized.
2. Networking – I attend conferences and user groups and “work the room” by meeting and talking to as many fellow developers and entrepreneurs as I can.  I need to attend more local user groups, it is important to get out of your office and meet people.  I also think virtually meeting people is a great way as well, using Twitter and Facebook to network works very well for me and I know other too.
3. Direct Contact – this is what I have focused on over the past couple months and is making the most impact. 

Getting Started

All of these take time to develop but doing a little of each can move things forward. 

Writing – start a blog and write on a regular basis with things that interest you.  Comment on other peoples blogs and link back to your blog if the topic is relevant.  I know people are on the Twitter bandwagon and say blogging has died and Twitter is the king, I don’t agree and think writing is a great way to tell your potential audience you know your stuff.

Network – attend a conference and bring plenty of business cards, meet people and hand them out.  Go to the after hours parties and mingle, don’t just stand in the corner.  Pick some local user groups and attend, could be a developer-related one or a business luncheon, but get out and chat with people and get the name out.

Direct Contact – this sort of stands on its own but also piggybacks Networking.  How? Well, those contacts you meet are great for follow-up later, emailing with a note about meeting them goes a long way.  I am not talking about emailing everyone but those that seemed interested, said to give them a call or you feel has a problem to be solved with which you can help.  I like email versus a phone call, it is less intrusive and you can easily say it was nice to meet them in an email where a phone call to say so might be inappropriate.

There are other ways I have been using Direct Contact to find leads other than follow-up to a networking event.  It requires some ingenuity to find ways to make direct contact.  I use newspapers and magazines to find out what is going on with companies, maybe they are expanding or have a new product.  This might be an opportunity for a new web site or chance to come in as a consultant to help write some new software to support some new business.  You never know until you ask.

I am always listening to my fellow consultants, maybe they need help on a new project or an old project they are behind on.  Maybe they have leads they just can’t follow-up on or are not their expertise.  Taking a lead from them is a really easy way to get direct contact.  I have even offered to pay a finders fee for leads if I get the job, maybe a flat-fee or some amount per hour for each hour I bill.  This is a great incentive for them to give you the lead over someone else.

One of the single best ways I have found new direct contact leads is using Twitter, Twitter Search to be exact.   People are talking and finding the topic you are interested in is a search away.  If you were looking for ASP.NET work, you could search to see who is talking about ASP.NET and their projects.  You can reply to them or possibly get an email address from their Twitter profile and send them an email.  This works great!

It is surprising to me to see people publicizing they need some help with their project.  They are asking to be contacted…perfect.

Finally

I have been a consultant for many years and finding work is enjoyable to me.  I like the challenge of finding leads and building a rapport with someone well enough for them to give you their money.  Think about it, convincing people to exchange their hard-earned money for your service is a great feat and not to be taken lightly.

If you do a good job that client will tell others and getting new business will be easier.  Starting out is not easy and no magic bullet but I do recommend C.J. Hayden’s book.  Finding leads takes time and even the smallest effort can pay off but the right effort.

Disclaimer: I am not a marketing expert, just someone honing their skills after many years of consulting.  I wanted to write up a bit about what works for me, not a recipe for everyone.

I am not a designer and I never pretend to be. The projects I have worked on over the years has had a designer involved at some level so the pain of trying to make a user interface pleasant to look at was never a concern of mine. I have a few personal projects I have been working on lately and needed some design work. A bit of searching around the web led me to 99Designs. 99Designs is a web site which will put designers in touch with people who need services. The folks looking for design work create "Contests" with a fixed price for designers to submit an initial design, hoping to get the work.

I created a contest for a web site design for a small utility application I have been creating. The contest started about February 21, 2009 and after only a few days had some entries. The cost of the contest was $45 dollars to setup and I put a fixed amount of $400 dollars as what I thought was a fair price. I received a total of about 25 entries over the life of the contest, which was 7 days. Overall the process of viewing the contest entries was good but, the quality of the entries varied a lot and were less than top-notch design work. It was about what I expected for the amount I was willing to pay.

I found what I determined to be the winning design and informed the designer. Over the next couple weeks the designer was very gracious and work with me on several iteration of the pages he agreed to create. Once he was done it came time to pay him and this is where the issues started. I do a fair amount of transactions using Paypal, love them or hate them, they work. I planned on paying this designer via Paypal, except Paypal does not transfer money to Egypt. After talking with the designer I found out Western Union is the accepted way to send money from the U.S. to Egypt. A quick trip to the Western Union web site revealed they do send money to Egypt but the fee for the transaction was $42 to send $400, what the heck? The $42 fee did not include credit card fees for "withdrawing cash", but not much I could do at this point.

The story gets a bit more interesting when I submitted the request to transfer money to my new designer friend, when I received a message from Western Union who could not complete my request. I then needed to call Western Union to give them additional information about the transfer. A call, and fairly long hold time, put me in touch with a very nice customer service woman who assured me she would take care of this right away and I would be on my way. Well, I was on my way alright. I was told by the customer service representative that Western Union refused to send money to this person and suggests highly that I do not do business with him or attempt to send funds to them. She told me to read between the lines, whatever that meant. I was completely baffled by this response and thought I had triggered some terrorist alarm or something. How could this be? Western Union is in the business of sending my money where I say and how can they determine not to send it.

This left me with little choice other than to tell the designer what had happened and my apparent lack of ability to pay him for his work. It goes without saying he was not very happy and accused me of trying to back out of doing business with him. I couldn't blame him for being upset.

I then contacted the good folks at 99Designs who assured me they have dealt with sending funds all over the world and could do this for me for the contest cost plus 10%, which equates to about the same as Western Union. After some manual intervention by the 99Designs team I was able to send 99Designs the necessary funds to complete the agreement I had with the designer. The designer later uploaded the artwork and it is now in the hands of 99Designs to forward the funds.

In hindsight I should had found out where this designer lived and possibly taken his location into consideration. I probably should have created a guaranteed contest instead of the type I created, this way 99Designs takes care of paying the designer and then accepts the design which is then delivered to me. 99Designs' Customer Service was top-notch and salvaged what I thought was a project gone wrong.

I hope my experience saves a fellow developer the hassle of dealing directly with foreign designers.

Technorati Tags: 99Designs,Web Design

I attended Nathaniel Talbott’s talk titled Fear of Programming at acts_as_conference 2009 in Orlando a few weeks ago. Nathaniel’s talk was about how we may have good ideas for a product or project but for some reason we rationalize why we can’t do them. I think we all have this type of behavior in one aspect or another in our daily lives. We tend to procrastinate about fixing the roof, writing that article, or working on that software idea.

During the talk Nathaniel mentioned a book he recommended called War of Art by Steven Pressfield, which is about inspiration and getting beyond those things that stop us from doing the things we really want to accomplish. I picked up a copy of this book from a used book seller associated with Amazon. The book is an easy read at only 165 pages.

 

The Book

From the author’s web site, the book is described as:

What keeps so many of us from doing what we long to do? Why is there a naysayer within? How can we avoid the roadblocks of any creative endeavor—be it starting up a dream business venture, writing a novel, or painting a masterpiece?

Bestselling novelist Steven Pressfield identifies the enemy that every one of us must face, outlines a battle plan to conquer this internal foe, then pinpoints just how to achieve the greatest success.

The War of Art emphasizes the resolve needed to recognize and overcome the obstacles of ambition and then effectively shows how to reach the highest level of creative discipline. Think of it as tough love . . . for yourself.

The book is really made up of three mini-books:

• Book One – Resistance, Defining the Enemy
• Book Two – Combating Resistance, Turning Pro
• Book Three – Beyond Resistance, Higher Realm

The pages of the book are not always filled with text but sometimes very short paragraphs with powerful ideas. The subject or character of the book is a force referred to as Resistance and the book defines what it is, how to recognize it and finally how to deal with it. I can't clearly define what resistance is here, that is up to the book to convey. I can say in my mind resistance is more than one force but actually many forces which consist of one or more of the follow:

• Procrastination - can be a result of resistance
• Rationalization - giving ourselves reasons why we can't or won't do something
• Too hard - we thrive on instant gratification. If we think something is too hard to do or will take too long, we reason why we can't do it.

I am guilty of these things myself. I have had software product ideas in my head for years and always seem to reason why NOW is not the time to start them. I often feel this way and this book hit the nail on the head, as they say, and touched upon many points that felt like Steven wrote just for me. The book also points outs various things that happen in life as key things to think about that I may not have thought very much about until now or until it effected me or my family.

 

Thoughts Raised

One of the most interesting points made in the book, is when someone is diagnosed with a disease such as cancer

The moment a person learns he's got terminal cancer, a profound shift takes place in his psyche. At one stroke in the doctor's office he becomes aware of what really matters to him. Things that sixty seconds earlier had seemed all-important suddenly appear meaningless, while people and concerns that he had till then dismissed at once take on supreme importance.

I think we often asks ourselves what we would do if we only had 3 months to live but we never really consider the answer because it is not happening to us. So why shouldn't we actually treat every day like it is our last and do the things that are important to us, to live out the dreams we have?

One of my favorite motivators is Gary Vaynerchuk who runs Wine Library TV and is an entrepreneur who is constantly telling everyone to get out there and hustle and do the things you really love, quit that crappy job and do something you want to get up and do everyday. He is right, as is Steven. Checkout Gary's talk from Future of Web Apps - Miami for a 13 minute sample of exactly what I am talking about.

 

Answers Given

I found this book to be full of answers to some of the questions I looked inside myself to find but never could quite understand enough to find an answer. I am not suggesting this book should be followed blindly without first thinking about the implications but more as an explanation of the behavior you may have exhibited over the years, yet could not explain. The term Resistance is used throughout the book and explains so many thing with regard to explaining the why.

Remember, Resistance does not have a single definition or a single trait but comes from may angles and takes many forms. It really comes down to what we are afraid of; whether it be rejection, fear of failure at a job or something other unknown.

As I read this book I kept getting a recurring image in my mind, the Nike logo with the slogan of “Just do it”. This book can easily be summed up in those three little words. So if there is an idea you have to start a business, software project of something else you have been putting off, there is never a better time then now.

 

Finally

This book was an incredible read for me, well beyond most books I read. I get tips and techniques from books but not the sort of life changing guidance I got from this book. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone, go out and buy it now.

2009 will be a life changing year for me. I am going to make positive changes in my work and the things I am going to get out of it. Stay tuned and thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to read what I have to say.

 

A recent post by Dave Winer over on Scripting News about how he made $2 Million Dollars with his blog has really gotten me thinking.  Dave has always stood his ground that he does not put advertising on his blog, so how could he possibly make that sort of money? 

Dave’s post was really a response to what Dan Lyons of Newsweek reported as saying:

I learned the hard way: while blogs can do many wonderful things, making huge amounts of money isn't one of them.

Dan reveals he tried to get rich with his blog, often post 10-20 items a day but barely made anything from his use of the Google Adsense program:

My first epiphany occurred in August 2007, when The New York Times ran a story revealing my identity, which until then I'd kept secret. On that day more than 500,000 people hit my site—by far the biggest day I'd ever had—and through Google's AdSense program I earned about a hundred bucks. Over the course of that entire month, in which my site was visited by 1.5 million people, I earned a whopping total of $1,039.81. Soon after this I struck an advertising deal that paid better wages. But I never made enough to quit my day job. Eventually I shut down—not for financial reasons, but because Steve Jobs appeared to be in poor health.

Dave tells the tale of how he made $2 million dollars with his blog, not by advertising, but by using the brand that he has and to speak about what interests him.  He audience is THE people he is trying to influence and he is not writing about what he THINKS people want to read about, but what is important to him.  This post by Dave has probably got me thinking more about my blogging, which has been sporadic at best, and how I can best effect and enlighten my audience:

If I had any advice to offer it's this -- get in the habit of communicating directly with the people you want to influence. Don't charge them to read it and don't let others interfere with your communication.

I have been posting here for the past 3 years with things I think my readers (thank you by the way) want to hear and not necessarily what I want to write about.  This hasn’t always been the case but more times than not, it HAS been the case.  I should have been more aware of this before now, when I look at my server logs and realize what people are reading they are reading what was important to me at the moment.  Maybe my writing reflects the passion I have at that moment, about that topic?  I don’t know, maybe my writing and communication skills are better when I am passionate about the topic.

I commented to Dave’s post on his blog to thank him for the thoughtful post and to ask about my concern for losing readers if I didn’t necessarily talk about what I perceive my audience wanting to read about and Dave replied:

I think you should talk about whatever you want to talk about. Why be scared of "losing" subscribers -- it's not like you owned them. Everyone is free to choose, if someone doesn't want to listen to you, would you change what you say to make them want to listen to you? Would you teach your kids to do that? Please, I hope not, not if you want them to be healthy and happy and to like themselves.

I try to respect the differences between people, I might read a blog written by a Yankees fan even though I despise the Yankees. I know that there are Yankees fans. If I ran the world I would probably try to encourage them not to root for the Yankees, but even so I know that as long as there was free choice there probably would be some misguided souls who don't see the light. :-)

It's very easy for people to tune out. They're mostly tuned out most of the time anyway. I wouldn't worry about it. Be yourself man!

It is really just commonsense and great advice but it rings true and many of us may not understand the importance of doing your own thing and publishing what is important to you.  Be sure to read the comments on Dave’s post, a lot of good content in there as well.  I think the overall moral here is that Dave did what came natural and through good writing and good communication he established relationships with readers and because well-known.  This exposure lead to some success that he may not have had otherwise, he company may not have been bought otherwise.  Blogging for Dave has been part of the overall marketing of oneself and has worked quite well.  It’s obvious that advertising did not work in Dan’s case as this method is much more like buying a lottery ticket, some win and most don’t.

So, dear reader, I thank you for reading my blog all this time, it is truly appreciated.  I promise to write about things that of of interest to me from now on and I hope you will become engaged and interact here.   All the talk about blogs going away is bogus, how could I write all of this in 140 characters on Twitter?  This blog and Twitter go hand-in-hand as a way to develop my identity.

I have a really bad habit, I have friends and organizations who need help and I volunteer to help but hardly ever follow through.  As a web developer I have friends or acquaintances who are in need of a web site or a “little bit” of web work and they come to me for some help, which is of course free.  I, in turn, happily volunteer because the deadline is months off but as the deadline approaches I start to get a stressed feeling about the deadline, I continue with paying work and never have time to do the volunteer work. 

I have done this more times than I care to admit to but I keep doing it.  I need to stop agreeing to do free work when I know I will never do it.  I don’t knowingly take the work, aware that I won’t do it, but I should realize I am way too busy to even try.  In the end, I have to tell the person I am letting down the news and they have to scramble to get the work done.  It seems like a low-life thing to do.  I think I have a problem saying no.

I know others take on volunteer work, how do you do it?  Do you just commit to it and the heck with the work that pays the bills?  I work a lot and the free time I have ends up being spent with the family.  I don’t want to give up time with them.